BERLIN (Reuters) - Nations must act to slow extinction
rates, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on
Thursday, arguing the loss of species threatened food supplies
for billions of people.

Just 10 days before the start of a U.N. summit on
biodiversity in the western city of Bonn, Gabriel told the
German parliament that both industrialized and developing
countries had to step up their efforts.

"When we talk about biodiversity, we are talking about an
instruction manual for the planet," Gabriel said. "There are a
huge number of examples to show this is about the survival of
billions of people."

Gabriel, due to open the Bonn summit, pointed to marine
life as an example.

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"If we don't do anything, there won't be any more
commercial fishing by 2050. Imagine what that means for the
world's food supplies," Gabriel said, noting several billion
people rely on protein from fish to survive.

U.N. experts say human activity, including the emission of
greenhouse gases, threatens to cause the worst spate of
extinctions on earth since the dinosaurs died out 65 million
years ago. Some experts say three species disappear every hour.

Gabriel also pointed to a rice virus which wiped out many
of the world's varieties of rice. He said scientists found one
type of rice that was resistant to the virus.

"That stopped the destruction of rice stocks around the
world and people dying of hunger. Imagine if we had destroyed
this variety of rice through development," he said.

About 4,000 international experts and government ministers
will try to agree on ways to slow the rate of loss of plants
and animals at the Bonn Convention on Biological Diversity
meeting.

A summit in 2002 set a goal of slowing the rate of
biodiversity loss by 2010 but experts say little progress has
been made, not least because no baselines were set.

The EU has a more ambitious goal to halt biodiversity loss
by 2010.

Campaigners say Germany itself has its work cut out. A
World Wildlife Fund report this week showed Europe's biggest
economy saw the proportion of endangered species rise to 72.5
percent from 68.7 percent between 1994 and 2006.